DISCLAIMER: I don't own 'em. Well, did you really think I do? I'm not Chris Carter, 10-13 productions or Fox. So sorry, but I am using 'em all. Chris, you might be able to have them back after I'm finished, IF you beg. :) I make no money off these. (laughs) I wish! NOTE: I thought of this whilst watching 'Good Will Hunting'. Don't ask. The tall teenager sat in the office, an expression of sulking playing across his handsome features. He knew why he was here. He was going into another foster home, the seventh in under five years. Since he was ten, he'd been in and out of homes, one after another. When he was ten, his father had brought him over to America from his native land of Russia. But on the eve of his eleventh birthday, his father had committed suicide, leaving him to go through foster homes like pairs of shoes. Rightfully, he should have been sent back to Russia, to live with his mother and twin sister. But since he couldn't find anyone who spoke Russian, and his English was halted, no-one understood, and he was kept in the U.S.A. Soon, he went into his first home. The family weren't so bad, but the school was. Since he'd always been a loner, he was picked on. Continually he came home at night, beaten and bleeding. But silent. He honestly believed, in the year he was with them, he didn't speak a word. Even in Russian. He could see how his "family" yearned to help him, but couldn't. He didn't care, he didn't want them to. He didn't want their sympathy. And then he got the news that his sister and himself had been adopted anyway. To this day, he still had only a very hazy idea of who told him that. He knew that the man had worked with his father, but he had no name. It also seemed that he continually was surrounded by cigarette smoke. For some reason, he trusted this information, and knew it was the truth. This shattered him, it obviously meant no-one had ever really loved him, he'd never had a real family, without knowing it. His second foster home helped a little. He spoke, and in English. They had a puppy - a roly poly Saint Bernard puppy. He loved that puppy so much, because it was perhaps the only thing that loved him unconditionally. He spoke to the puppy, more in Russian than English. He spoke occasionally to the family. But not very often. Because they hit him. Well, his "father" did. Because he drank, and came home, and belted him. Hard, over and over. But he didn't cry out - didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing, hearing how much it hurt. But it did, and he still could feel the pain, see the boy cringing in the corner when his foster father came home, afraid. But the final horror came when his foster father killed the puppy. Yelled at him, that he was not so high and mightily different from the rest of them. Yelled for hours, while he sat there, tears rolling down his face. Then the man had killed the puppy. Took a knife out and made him watch, while he killed his puppy. Then made the then thirteen year old boy bury his own puppy, the only thing he'd ever loved. He ran away that night. But the social services caught up with him. By this time, he'd learnt enough English to beg to be let go back to his mother - or the person he'd thought was for most his life, and his sister, but they would have nothing of it. He wasn't allowed. The next home was the worst of all. The father - Tony, had been horrible. And he couldn't chalk it up to being the alcohol, because Tony wasn't a drinker. He just was a bad person in general. He'd been fourteen then, and old enough to know that it was wrong, what Tony did to his wife. And his foster sisters. It was very wrong. So one day, being the stupid, cocky boy he was, he told Tony that. Bastard damn near killed him. Hit him for hours, until he fell unconcious, a long time after when he'd wanted to stop feeling it. Tony waited until he woke up, then turned the whip on him. After he passed out from that one, Tony locked him in the cellar, with the rats, for hours. He didn't know how long it was, but he broke when he was down there. Curled up on the steps and cried. It was too much. The hurt was too much. By this time, they started him off with a long line of psychiatrists. He didn't like any of them, hated them in fact. They looked at him like he was something dirty, to be avoided, or pitied. Pity was one thing he couldn't hack. From then forward, he'd gone through the rest of the families, and at least two dozen psychiatrists. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't hack it with any of them. They tried to get him to talk, to let his emotions out. As a small child, he'd been taught about emotions. To keep them bottled up. The man he still considered his father had taught him that. Not to let them see your weaker side. They thought that he was just a good person, but he knew that really he wasn't. They told him that it was because he had been abused all these times, that he had such impulses to do evil things. He knew that it wasn't. His father had always told him he'd turn out evil like him one day. But he hadn't believed it for the longest time. He fought it. And then he wound up here. Coming up to number seven. Three men walked in to the room, the first he recognised as the Social Worker who was talking to him before. He purposely looked out the window. "Alex?" the worker asked, and sat down in front of him. "These are the men you'll be living with now. You're going to go with them." Alex had noticed quickly how condescending this guy talked to him. He stood up, shoving his hands in his pocket and subtley studying the two men. One had lines over his face, and looked like a smoker. Both were old. Alex could tell this straight off. The whiter haired one spoke. "Come on, young man, there's nothing to be afraid of.." Alex almost gagged, more condescension. But he followed the two out of the room, and out to the parking lot, to where their black sedan was waiting. He silently got into the back, and the two men took the front. He looked out the window. "Alex," the one he thought was a smoker started, "do you know who we are?" In Russian, Alex shot back a curse. He didn't know how he could know them. The white haired one looked in the rearview, and advised Alex to watch his mouth. "No. I. Don't." Alex stated monosyllabically. They exchanged a glance. "We worked with your...adoptive father, Alexis Arntzen." Alex almost passed out. He stole a closer glance at the two of them, and recognised them. The ones his father's partner called Cancer Man and Well Manicured Man. Now he was nervous. "What..what do you want from me?" The Cancer Man took out a cigarette. "To carry on the family tradition, to work for us. But you're too young yet. We have no use for a teenager. We're going to give you a deal, Alex." Alex stared him in the eyes, in the mirror. He smiled. "A new life, for you. An education, and a guaranteed job at the Federal Bureau of Investigation when you get out of college. A new name." Alex was suspicious. "Where's the catch?" "You work for us after college." Alex shrugged. "What would I be doing?" "Same as Alexis Arntzen did." Cancer Man sounded serious now, and Alex wondered exactly what that was. He'd never known what his 'father' did for a job exactly. "Except, when you first join us, you will be keeping an eye on someone. Your father's partner's son." Alex shrugged again. He couldn't see much wrong with this deal. "Okay," he said quietly. "Why not?" Cancer Man smiled, took a drag on his cigarette, and handed him a file. Alex opened it, and skimmed through it. College, a prominent New York University. A new identity, address, everything. The car screeched to a stop, and when he looked outside, he noticed it was the High School he was signed up at, according to the file. He opened the door, and got out, looking up. He turned back to the car. Well Manicured Man reached through the space between the seats, to shake Alex's hand. "Goodbye, Alex Arntzen. The next time we meet, you'll be Alex Krycek. See you then." And with that, they pulled away from the curb. Leaving Alex wondering what the hell he'd just sold his soul into.